Thanks.

Your recurring dispute idea seems good to me - but the whole current design
is wrong because - taking it back to basics - I have absolutely no control
over who debits my account, and the onus is on me to notice the amount
before a direct debit payment date from my bank account. It has to be
wrong.

I reiterate. CC companies are canny enough to have processes by which they
prevent fraud by cancelling ALL charges (normally when I'm abroad and when
putting it right involves lot's of time in queues at international phone
rates) but refuse to prevent this type of fraud. The difference is that
they are only interested in transactions that may cause a loss to their
shareholders rather than their customers.

In my case there should be NO trader with credit card facilities who's
address isn't registered with all companies. Business contact details aren't
state secrets. No company with CC facilities should not be contactable by
ALL cc companies.

Sometimes when I've had a problem with a transaction the CC company's CS
staff get right on the phone and try and resolve it.

Anyway - thanks for your interest and intelligent (mean no patronising!)
constructive comments.

"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
om...
Dan Charette wrote:

The issue for me is simple. Whether it's fraud or not (it is!)

.. and if it is, then no matter whether the merchant *is* the fraudster
or not .. :-)

if the card holder hadn't originated a charge

This is an important aspect. Often cardholders are warned against
giving a continuing authority, on the grounds that some traders are
less than diligent in complying with notifications from the cardholder
withdrawing their authority. But at least if they *have* given the
authority they can normally be expected to have the means of getting
in touch with the merchant in order to withdraw it.

Maybe through newsgroups similar to this. But I cannot remember ever having
received any form of warning against giving (or taking precautions against)
a continuing authority.

In my experience, it is generally felt that a continuing authority is a
'direct debit' and that the cardholder has similar control. It simply is
not the case and I have yet to see any formal notification to this effect.
People are slowly waking up to the difference, but not with any formal
notifications that I am aware of.

[...]
The only snag with that arrangement is what happens if the cardholder
happens to want to use the same trader for genuine transactions too.
But in that case there would be contact details available, so perhaps
it's not really a problem.

Also, surely, a new and formal authorisation would be given for this new
transaction, and will also be available.


In this specific case my CC company states on the form I
have to sign that no contact information is available for the trader so
clearly if they cannot contact him (they can only try through the
originating cc company) then nor can I.

There's no "they can only try" about it. They would surely do this as
a matter of course, and there should be no possible circumstances in
which such attempts could ever be unsuccessful. After all, if any
transaction is in dispute, the "originating cc company" (by which you
presumably mean the trader's merchant facility provider) *must* be able
to contact the trader in order to have them produce proof of authority,
or else the cardholder's cc co simply won't pay the provider.

A tremendous burden is being put on the cardholder. A channel of
communication already exists through the process of the card transaction. I
cannot believe that the card system is so archaic as to not be able to put a
hold or stop on certain merchant numbers or identities - at least against
specific card accounts. This business about letting the transaction go
through and then having to reverse is nonsensical

Iain

On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:03:50 -0000, "Andy Pandy"
wrote:

In general terms, the police will want reasonable evidence that a criminal
act has occurred. A line on a credit card statement and a statement from the
cardholder that "I didn't authorise that" is a laughable level of evidence.

It's a start. Do people come to the police with a nice package which
the police only have to present to the court? If the police didn't
start an investigation after that evidence they would be negligent.

"Peter Saxton" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:03:50 -0000, "Andy Pandy"
wrote:

In general terms, the police will want reasonable evidence that a
criminal
act has occurred. A line on a credit card statement and a statement
from the
cardholder that "I didn't authorise that" is a laughable level of
evidence.

It's a start. Do people come to the police with a nice package which
the police only have to present to the court? If the police didn't
start an investigation after that evidence they would be negligent.

Let us know how you get on next time it happens to you then.

--
Andy